Elsie's Notes from New England - THEMission edition

"It's like 'on-a-car-ah'," is what she told people the first time she met them.  Ana Kare Edwards probably doesn't remember me, but I'll never forget her.  Her name was cool enough to remember all by itself, but she also taught me an important lesson before I ever needed it. She and I were visiting teaching companions back in 1980. Some of you readers know what that means, but for those of you who don't, visiting teaching is a program in our church where women are paired up as companions and are assigned from two to six other women in the congregation to visit every month.  When we go visiting, we take a spiritual message, but mostly we just try to be each others' friends.  We take casseroles when someone is sick, we watch each others' children, or meet on our lunch hours to check in and talk about whatever comes up -- work, school, kids, gardens, sales, our health, our dreams, our hopes . . . and on that day a very long time ago, we were tal...

Five o'clock comes early in the morning.  Too early for me.  And yet, Monday through Friday, almost without fail since last September, I have dragged myself out of bed, gotten dressed and been out the door before six a.m.  I do this so that I can meet with eight-to-ten teenagers each morning and talk with them about the scriptures for 45 minutes.  For those who aren't familiar with this unique ritual, it's called seminary, and members of my church do it all over the world.  High school students study for four years, covering the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Book of Mormon and LDS Church History.  Each course includes the memorization of 25 significant verses or blocks of verses of scripture that help to teach and reinforce the doctrines of the church.  The kids are expected to read the scriptures daily and encouraged to look for real-life applications of the principles taught there.  Sometimes that application is really easy.  Someti...